Transcript
AGM Minutes 16.5.2016 Present: Norman Tottle, Carla Hodgson, David Robertson, Michael Parker, Andrew Mott, William Moore, Avi NussBaum, Allen Field, Roy Blasket, Jonathan Tidswell, Diane Ash, Paul Venn, Robert Amies 1. Review of the year: A new committee was appointed at the last AGM, but year started with chair having a major health issue and being unavailable for a number of months, acting chair also having health issues and being unavailable for a couple of months, and the tech support/webmaster leaving unexpectedly. Carla and Paul stepped forward and ran the club, Darren stepped in and handled the tech support/webmaster but in the new year other commitments meant he had to resign. POTY - previously we have had a different judge for each POTY but this year decided to have the same judge for all four, with mixed results. Having the same person brings consistency but on the downside the judge’s marks have been getting higher thus not giving a realistic reflection of the photos submitted. Quite a number of new people have joined and this has raised the issue of the purpose of the club and what it offers members, ie, a great many join to learn about their camera and about photography but the club has a history of not teaching. Roy pointed out that if the club is to prosper and grow we have to move into the ‘teaching’ arena as that is what people are expecting, needing and wanting. Debate ensued about this and whether or not the practical evenings would, in part, meet this need or whether we need to have all or part of an evening devoted to learning on a particular aspect of the camera settings and then putting into practice what we have learnt. 2.
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Treasurer’s report - see 2015/16 balance sheet. Started the year with £461.14 and are currently standing at £439.39, £22.75 down on last year but this year we have had Hall Hire expenses. Expected debits before the end of the club year: remaining hall hire fees £96; POTY 4 winner £5; Annual POTY winner £25; speaker £20. The screen and the projector belong to the club, the laptop belongs to whoever is doing tech support. If for any reason that
were not possible we would have to invest in a good laptop hence it is important to keep a decent float. 3.
Tech support/webmaster: A new website is being created - it is 4 months away but it may be a year before it is fully operational. In the meantime our current website continues and will be kept updated. David is planning an automated system for submission of photos. Apparently it works along the same lines as Facebook and Flickr so members will just have to upload and the programme will do the rest. This will hopefully cut out human error, ie, photos being missed/going adrift. This should be up and running fairly soon. Regarding the club calendar, David is proposing to have an option for members to indicate whether they are attending the session.
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Reforming the commitee for season 2016 -17: Because of ongoing health issues Norman is resigning from his post. Gill Moppett has left and Norman suggested that for the present we do not need a Competition secretary. Paul Venn suggsted that we minute that if the need arises for one the committee is given the authority to find and appoint one. Paul Venn also asked for a description of the posts and also an idea of how much time is required for the task. The creation of the new committee took place with people nominating and others seconding those put forward.
New committee: Chair: Carla Hodgson Tech support/Webmaster: David Robertson Programme secretary: Paul Nevens Treasurer/Secretary: Diane Ash Hospitality: William Moore Members’ member: Patricia Ablett, Jonathan Tidswell, Paul Venn 5.
Draft Programme: Attached. There is an error - December the 21st should read December 19th. In line with request from members, for every 2 ‘viewing/showing’ events [ie, competitions, theme, critique] there will be
one practical evening. Because of other events, the numbers actually are viewing/showing: doing 12:5. 6.
Competitions:
a] POTY - Originally when photos were awarded a mark, it was just a mark out of 10. Photos that did not appear to be equal could be awarded the same mark and this left members puzzled. This year the judge was asked to mark the photos on two elements - creativity/meeting the theme and technical merit. Each section potentially achieving a mark of 5. However, this too has not worked because there are some photos that do not meet the theme but can still achieve the same mark as those that meet the theme and technical merit. It is therefore proposed to change the total mark to 15 and the photos to be judged according to meeting the theme, creativity and technical merit. Each section to be marked out of 5. The point was made that it seemed unfair that a photo that does not meet the theme could still potentially achieve the same score as one that does. The decision is therefore whether or not we exclude photos that do not meet the theme. - Giving clear direction both to the judge and members when a topic designed to encourage and stimulate lateral thinking, creativity, and out of the box thinking was included? We have had topics of this nature and the judge has had a very narrow definition of the topic which has resulted in many members’ photos achieving low scores for meeting the theme. This seems unfair. There was discussion and some disagreement about how to proceed with this. b] MONTHLY THEME - to contine as is but instead of a show of hands, to have a written voting system. There was some discussion about this and whether it would achieve any better results + the time it might take, but it was agreed to try it for the next season. 7.
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Facebook and Flickr: Not all members have a Facebook account but perhaps we could encourage members to join so as to be a member of and participate in the Club’s page. Very few members post photos on the page but Carla is now using it as another means of communicating with members [instead of email] and to share photos, post anything of interest, information exchange etc. Flickr - clear website of all photos annually but place them on Flickr as a record of what we have done and for members, old
and new, to look at, remind ourselves of what we have done, to gain inspiration and ideas - David said this could be done on the new website. But if members would like to share their own photos [apart from those they share in competitions etc], one way of doing so if they have a Flick account is to connect with the club Flickr account. 8.
Member’s day – structure handed out.
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Any other business:
a] membership and logging in - how many members do we have? Difficult to assess. Few answers to Carla’s email asking if people were still members. There used to be a system of logging people in but this practice fell away. In order to keep a track of those who attend regularly and those who come once and then drop off, and to comply with Health and Safety, we need to go back to logging people in. At the end of the year we should be able to see who is a regular member, who attends for certain events only, and who has not attended and can be removed from the list. b] membership details - in the past members were asked to complete a form asking for their name, address, contact number and email address; camera make and type, what equipment they had, their experience in/with photography and what they are interested in, eg, portraits, wildlife, landscape etc. It is proposed that we reactivate this + also ask what they would like to get out of the club. c] name badges - a plea was made for name badges as this would make it easier to identify people and also to help with remembering names d] prints - a plea was made to have a session when members can bring in prints of their photos. This could be incorporated with Member’s day starting next season. e] William buys cups in bulk but he does not have anywhere to store them could a member do so? Carla has checked with the secretary of the Hall but all storage space has already been hired out.
f] POTY and Theme night topics - Paul Nevens would like members’ suggestions. Any topic that is mentioned 2 or more times automatically is included. Thereafter topics are chosen out of a hat.
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